Weaver stays focused on day of distraction

By Lewine Mair

12:01AM BST 23 Jun 2007

America's Drew Weaver meets Australia's Tim Stewart this morning in what is the first international final in the Amateur Championship since 1979. That was a year of two American finalists, with Jay Sigel defeating Scott Hoch.

Weaver, who is ranked a lowly 165 in US college golf, never had the upper hand against 18-year-old Jason Shufflebotham at Lytham St Annes yesterday afternoon until it came to the 14th. Though his long game had always been the more solid, 20-year-old Weaver now had luck on his side as well when schoolboys punctured Shufflebotham's concentration over a 35-footer.

In what sounded like a well-practised chorus, three lads yelled "Fore!" as the Welshman was preparing to putt. Sadly, those R&A officials, who were from a generation which might have felt inclined to give the culprits a clip about the ear, were too old to scale the intervening railings.

With Shufflebotham's putt skidding 10 feet past the hole, Weaver was never going to be as thrown by the treatment meted out to him - a series of exaggerated coughs and splutters. He rolled his 25-footer to tap-in distance to go one up - and won on the same 17th green where he had beaten Chris Wood in the quarter-finals.

The 13th was the key hole in the second semi-final. After Callum Macaulay missed the six-footer he needed to go two up, Stewart snatched each of the next two holes before tying things up at the 18th.

Related Articles

Weaver, who until now has never been in the running for a place in the US team for the forthcoming Walker Cup, would be the 21st American to win our Amateur, with Sigel having been the 20th in 1979.

As for Stewart, who won last year's Australian Amateur and is going on from here to play in seven American amateur events, he would be the first Australian since Doug Bachli back in 1954.

Colin Dalgleish, who is captaining the Great Britain and Ireland side at the Walker Cup, spoke yesterday of how satisfied he felt with the way his team were panning out, even if the squad members were all beaten by Thursday night. "They played well and were mostly involved in close games," he said.

The captain gave the impression that 46-year-old Gary Wolstenholme, who failed to qualify for the match-play stages, was by no means out of the running.

"There's no discrimination against over 45s," Dalgleish said lightly. The Scot knows only too well that the older Wolstenholme gets, the more irritating an opponent he becomes to young things who can out-hit him by 60 yards or more.